The Governor's Love Story

"Yeah, he's got it bad. It's obvious he has a head-over-heels crush on that woman."
(Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage: A History", referring to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his Argentine lover, Maria Belen Chapur)


I've said several times over the years that this is not a political blog, but it seems that I'm always writing about politicians and their extramarital adventures. It would be hard not to say something about Governor Mark Sanford, whose rather amazing story has been front-page news for the past week, and which promises to drag on for some time. But I'm not interested in discussing his hypocrisy, or his irresponsibility (both to his family and to the citizens of his state), or his use of public funds to carry on the affair---I'll leave all that to the real political bloggers.

Instead, I want to comment on two aspects of the situation that distinguish it from other political sex scandals. The first is that the governor's wife has been quite vocal in expressing her displeasure with her husband's behavior, and has by no means indicated that she can or will forgive him or take him back. In my last blog entry, I mentioned that Nevada Senator John Ensign's wife was conspicuously absent when he publicly confessed his affair, but otherwise Mrs. Ensign has remained in the background. By contrast, Mrs. Sanford hasn't hesitated to speak to reporters and camera crews, even from the driver's seat of her minivan with her kids in the back seat listening to every word.

Could it be that the era of the loyal-to-a-fault political wife has finally (and mercifully) come to an end?

The other fascinating aspect of the Sanford case is that this was not a fling with a young or ambitious campaign aide, or a two-hour hotel room tryst with a prostitute. It was---and perhaps still is---a real love affair. A love affair that (supposedly) began as a long and genuine friendship, with a woman who, by all accounts, is a woman of intelligence, sophistication, and class. I'm not, by the way, implying that Mrs. Sanford doesn't have those same qualities---she definitely does, as far as I can tell, and she's good-looking, too. But when such qualities are combined with a charming foreign accent, and when the new woman seems to be on your wavelength in every way, common sense goes out the window and a man starts thinking, saying, and doing things he never dreamed possible.

To me, what makes Governor Sanford a fascinating figure is that he knew that he was risking everything---his wife, his kids, his career---when he flew down to Argentina the most recent time. He had to have known that his unexplained absence would spark widespread media coverage. He had to have known that the truth would come out quickly and relentlessly, and that the repercussions would be severe. It's as if he had a death wish. Most other straying politicians undoubtedly knew, at some level, that they were taking a big risk, but they were typically so arrogant that they never considered that they might get caught. Governor Sanford was not so much arrogant as he was fatalistic; he was determined to do what he needed to do, and let the chips fall as they may.

I'm not saying I admire the guy, but I am saying I find him interesting, complex, even tragic. Although he's a man, in one big respect he's like many of the tragic heroines of literature and film: he was willing to risk everything for an impossible love. It will be interesting to see how the story ends, but one thing is clear: the lives of everyone involved will never be the same again. But I guess that's always been the case with love.